Cake lights up multiple musical genres

After experiencing Cake's compelling set on the side of the stage a generation ago in Philadelphia, Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne gushed: “There is no band like Cake.”

Cake was a perfect act to share a bill with Coyne and his avant-rock band. For Coyne to express such admiration to call Cake a unique act, there's the old axiom, it takes one to know one.

Cake, which will perform Friday, May 10, 2024, at the McGrath Amphitheatre in downtown Cedar Rapids, delivers an unusual mix of sounds. The Sacramento-based band blends rock, funk, folk, hip-hop, norteno (a subgenre of Northern Mexico music), country and mariachi, which makes for a terrific sonic potpourri.

But what is perhaps most impressive about Cake is that the hits the band has had have meaning.

“Well, your CD collection looks shiny and costly/How much did you pay for your bad Moto Guzzi/And how much did you spend on your black leather jacket/Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?”

Those biting lyrics are from Cake's unlikely initial hit, “Rock ’n’ Roll Lifestyle,” which reached the charts 30 years ago.

“That song was pretty angry,” vocalist/guitarist John McCrea said while calling from Sacramento. “There was just so much happening that was making me sick.”

Conspicuous consumption has only increased from a generation ago. Cake has had a number of hits, such as the urgent “The Distance” and the catchy “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” but the band is deep and actually cares. Cake hasn’t released an album since 2011’s “Showroom of Compassion.” The title of that project is appropriate.

The band, which also includes multi-instrumentalist Vince DiFiore, drummer Todd Roper, guitarist Xan McCurdy and drummer Daniel McCallum, isn’t the most prolific act. “Sinking Ship,” a politically charged tune about the state of our society, was the first song crafted by the band in seven years when it dropped in 2018.

“The guitar riff from that song is from when I was a teenager,” McCrea said. “Every now and again I would play that riff and I started singing, ‘We are on a sinking ship,’ and it fit.”

Cake released a cover of The Fifth Dimension’s upbeat classic “The Age of Aquarius” at the same time as “Sinking Ship.”

“We were playing that song in the studio for a while and it just counter-balanced ‘Sinking Ship.’ It’s a great, positive song. ”

Cake has a way with covers by making such tunes their own. the band’s covers range is impressive. Its spectrum runs from Gloria Gaynor’s disco anthem “I Will Survive,” to Black Sabbath’s metal masterpiece “War Pigs,” to the George Jones country classic ”The Race is On.“

“Playing someone else’s song is fun,” McCrea said. “But we never try to replicate what was recorded. We like taking things in a different direction.”

Part of what’s refreshing about Cake, much like Flaming Lips, is that the band was never about fame. It was about finding its little niche. It’s no surprise the group emerged during an era with bands that cared more about making quality music than grabbing the brass ring.

Such bands as The Replacements and Pavement were embraced by the underground, which often thumbed its nose at success around the year that punk broke. Those groups were buoyed by MTV’s late and lamented “120 Minutes,” a showcase for the best independent rock of the early ’90s. That show aired “Rock ’N’ Roll Lifestyle,” giving Cake its initial burst of national exposure.

Many of those early to mid-90s indie darlings are history, but Cake continues.

“We never thought all of these years later we would still be around, but here we are,” McCrea said. “People still want to see us and we’re not complaining.”